tattypotamus

[tattypotamus]

Black is a Burden

I caught the end of View to a Kill on ITV4 the other night. We must have had the tape at home when I was a kid. It's definitely my most watched Bond film and arguably the best theme tune. Possibly the best cast too: A young Christopher Walken accompanied by that most iconic of women Grace Jones. At the time she simultaneously frightened and inspired me.  I didn't yet know the words statuesque, obsidian, predatory, vulgar, elegant, amazon. Playing Zula in Conan the Destroyer confirmed those sentiments. Playing Strangé in Boomerang, well that just confused me. 

Spoiler alert – in the Bond film Grace Jones enables the villain and then the victor, Bond (naturally). By enables I mean she is the ultimate deciding factor in the success of either's plan. The villain, a caricature of neo-Nazi capitalism looks as Anglo/Aryan as you can imagine. She is his superior in physical strength despite his genetic engineering enhancements, and she ultimately outsmarts him after he betrays her. No happy ending for her but possibly redemption. This is not the review that I wrote as a pre-teen. In fact, I hadn't given it any thought until tonight when I watched half an hour of the film. I realised that I've changed.

Unsurprisingly, you might say, wisdom of age etc. But these themes would not have emerged for me 2 years ago. I would have taken a lot of persuading that these visual themes were in any way significant. So I've learnt more about film and more about image. And race. It didn't start with George Floyd. I have a brother who lives in America and his daily facebook feed (actually nightly given the time difference) was a reminder of how hard it is to be black in america. Every day, some new outrage, a killing; a battering, some new humiliation. Every single day. I watched the Daily Show, I knew the facts and figures. I had heard about the 1618 Project. America was trauma. I was scared for my brother. I still am. 

But it was in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin and the Minnesota Police Department that a friend sent me a link to a podcast interview of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones, discussing how America's ideological wars over it's history had laid the ground for that grotesque event. Dr Hannah Jones is the lead creator of the 1619 project – a long-form journalism endeavor which "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States' national narrative." I'd describe Ta-Nehisi as an incredible artist, author, philosopher and black man who is one of the heroes of the new enlightenment. Said without irony because these people's work is about blackness, and black lives and black work and black history and bringing all of this to the fore is their mission and great succcess. On both sides of the pond you can see their theories, their faces, their literature. Trevor Noah's stewardship of the Daily Show turned him from a comedian to a pundit to a media custodian as the only black anchor of that class of show. The success is matched by the outrage that makes wokeness the piñata of the right.

The penny didn't drop for me so much as a key was turning and finally clicked.  I didn't go on a degree course or a pilgrimage to reach a new level of understanding, it was suddenly easier to think and talk about race than it had been for a long time. I didn't then enjoy everything I learned about race or even accept it. I learned the term Anti-racist. I learned the term ally. I already knew that there was no such thing as 'race'. But then I learned that there was. I know this is probably as confusing as hearing somebody describe their dreams. It is confusing to me too as I have been black all of my life yet not really wrestled with these ideas and ideals. The resultant challenge to my brains elasticity has been severe. Traumatic even. I definitely see things in a different way, interpret signs differently, respond differently.

American history offers plenty of examples of how that nation idealised itself, simultaneously claiming moral superiority while systemically subjecting black people to the brutality of slavery and eliminating the rights of non-white ethnicities to exist as people. Their journey is recorded in history books, memoirs and most crucially, through the interpretation of it's constitution. Many will be familiar with the decision in 1954 Brown v Board of Education that outlawed racial segregation in schools. The US Supreme Court knocked out the doctrine of 'separate but equal' that had prevailed since that courts earlier decision in Plessy v Ferguson. In relation to education at least. A very short summary is that the court recognised that segregation was not ok because the outcome was that black people always lost out. They had poorer schools, educational outcomes, opportunities. A landmark case because it presented legal reason that was fundamental in rationalising the equality stipulations in the US constitution; useful for activists and campaigners for wider desegregation to advance.

Juxtapose that high point with the huge resistance to Brown in the US, particularly in the South. The decision, although unanimous was not popular. Political, judicial and social activism assaulted the decision and its logic for years after. Only a year later the outrage was crystalised with the horrific lynching murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi and the acquittal of some of his murderers.  That year MLK helped to organise the Montgomery Bus Boycott so beginning his assault on the institutional segregation of America. For perspective Barack Obama was born in 1961. Also for perspective between 2015 and September 2022 the rate of fatal police shootings of black people in the US stood at 41 per million versus 16 per million for white americans. This says two things. Firstly, some things have been learned in America, although that is not a simple narrrative.  And secondly. When Martin Luther King Jnr said 'the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice', he perhaps should have followed that up with: Discuss.

America helpfully advertises its shortcomings in terms of racial injustice. But there is no shortage of outrages in the UK. 23 years after the MacPherson report labelled the Metropolitan Police institutionally racist they have managed to retain the label. The adultification bias applied to black children by authorities is only now being discussed in the mainstream press because of the horrendous humiliating police strip-search of a black teenage girl mid-period. It is not some new police fad - it is a truth as old as the construction of race that accompanied the justification of slavery. Add that to the perception that black people are more dangerous and merit a more severe police response for the same offences. Comparing black and white people, in 2020 black people in England and Wales were five times more likely to have force used upon them; seven times more likely to have a Taser applied; nine times more likely to have it drawn on them. Eight times more likely to be restraint hand-cuffed. Three times more likely to have spit and bite guard applied. And that legendary eight times stop and search figure more than doubles when it comes to section 60 searches – the one where no reasonable grounds are required. Ironically, fewer searches of black people for drugs result in drugs being found. This is not intelligence-led policing. In 2021 serving police officer Benjamin Monk was convicted of manslaughter for killing Dalian Atkinson, a black man experiencing poor mental health, with a vicious kick to the head while he was on the ground having been tasered twice. One of my most haunting memories is hearing Leslie Thomas QC describing the inquest of Christopher Alder who died in custody in Hull in 1999 saying "This was the first case that I had done where upon seeing the CCTV, the jury cried at the inhumanity of man towards man." His family fought for 13 years to get a court-door admission from the state that they had breached his right to life and failed to conduct a proper enquiry into his death. From 2012-2021 eight percent of those who died in custody were black despite being three percent of the population. These figures are all taken from official sources.

There has consistently been no explanation for these disparities on a trend that has existed, and in most cases worsened since records began.

And they exist on every institutional metric. Health, wealth, education all exhibit worse outcomes for black people. Even where black people overachieve in education they are reduced by underemployment.  The biases go beyond the personal. Even when Covid levelled the population, it somehow managed to level some more than others. I speak for myself in reporting seeing countless lone black boys being surrounded by several gloved police officers for stop and search in the busiest streets in south east London where I used to live. And where they live; repeatedly humiliated in their communities. Take a moment to imagine your son or daughter standing with their back to a railing while one officer empties their pockets and seven others stand around them in formation. Imagine them coming home that day and you asking them how their school day was. Scratch that. You already know because your neighbour told you. And the lady in the bookstore told you. And they are home at 3pm when they should be at dance class or photography or some other class but they couldn't go because they are still shaking. They just want to be left alone.

But you might not imagine it, along with so many other people who will not relate their circumstances to those of the black people next to them. Sadly, this leaves swathes of our socio-cultural landscape silent; inconceivable in a nation that was so involved in both the Atlantic slave trade and 20th century colonialism. I've heard arguments from 'it's ok now, long as we all muck in and get along' to 'I just can't get my head around it all' to 'what good would it do, it would just be divisive'. It's difficult to argue with people who are looking for reasons to remain inactive. Exhausting.  

It is pointless to try to look for the same visually outrageous examples of racial injustice in Scotland as we see in America. The population proportions make it less likely, though unfortunately not impossible. We may not have hundreds of police shooting incidents and insurrectionists at our parliament but deep race-based inequality persists in Scotland. The employment gap with white people sits at over 16 per cent; almost two-thirds of race hate crimes – around 4,000 are reported a year – counted victims from a non-white ethnic group, despite making up only four percent of the population. But far more remarkable is what I call the longitudinal picture.

An unintended positive consequence of Floyd's murder is the massive drive to show consideration of racism, an effect of which is the teaching of the history of Scotland in schools with new materials that describe our involvement in the enslavement of African people and the colonisation and exploitation of their countries, resources and people.  Scotland's legendary history has commonly ignored some surprising narratives enfolding its dark past. For instance, the purchase of Benbecula, South Uist and Barra by John Gordon of Cluny using the compensation given to him for the loss of his enslaved 'property'. The impact of slavery on the ownership of Scottish Highlands goes far further; some £100 million of compensation money buying up one third of the West Highlands and Islands. Not to mention the countless kirks, bridges, mansions and halls in the rest of the country derived from the same corrupt enterprise.  Edinburgh's new town, GOMA, Pollock House. Slave-made Sugar, tobacco, cotton, traded and shipped by Scots, the profits ploughed into the earth at home.  Baked into the length, breadth and depth of this country is the zealous participation of Scottish people in the enslavement of Africans. Disproportionately so, in that Scots managed to claim 15-16% of compensation for the dispossession of slaves despite only accounting for 10% of the UK population. The plaque on Henry Dundas's statue credits him with destroying the lives of a cool half million Africans (a figure that did not need adjusting for inflation). His trade was not a secret when the statue was erected. Dundee University is now publicly reckoning with its own historical links to slavery as Glasgow University has done in recent years, owning up to receiving approximately £200m from donors involved in the slave trade. It is in such pockets as these that institutional consciousness is tilting towards the light. At least some understand that there is no substitute for honest, painful exploration to include the people from various ethnicities, origins, narratives in our nation's history. When looking through this lens, the presence of black people in Scotland is richly evident.

Black History Month has many purposes. One of those is to take stock of what has changed in the past year. A double-edged sword as the result is almost always - depressingly little. Inspiration is where you find it, and I have found it not least amongst my friends and colleagues who have made an effort to enlighten themselves and behave in an inclusive manner. I know it is not easy. There is a lot to bend your mind around, come to terms with and decide on. Choosing a side in an argument is a lot easier when you have a stake in it. I'm glad that so many people have chosen to recognise racial justice as their own responsibility; the responsibility as their own struggle and the struggle as their own lives. I'm well aware that that arc will not bend sufficiently in my lifetime but it would take longer if I sit this one out. The past few years for me, and for many others have been like an ideological birth squeeze; fundamentally and existentially painful. America as a nation went through it in the 60's and is going through it again now. It is happening in pockets all over the globe. Doing so because more people recognised that it was worse to do nothing, especially when they saw a black man having the life publicly squeezed out of him by a police squad for possibly, maybe, potentially, perhaps having used a counterfeit bill. Thank God it is happening, otherwise where would we be now?   Imagine if MLK had decided to sit it out, Obama had decided not to run, Mrs. Henry decided not to teach.

Mrs. Henry was a teacher from Boston who got a job at William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans when her husband transferred to a base there. She didn't know when she applied for a job there that she would wind up being a civil rights activist. Because on November 14 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges attended that school accompanied by Federal Marshalls as the first black student to integrate the elementary school system in the USA. You may have seen the photo of Ruby, a beacon of innocent courage walking between the Marshalls, immaculately dressed. Bag in hand. But that photo doesn't show every parent of every child in that school going into that school and pulling their children out, never to return. It doesn't show her eating her lunch at her desk alone for fear of being poisoned in the cafeteria. They don't show the protesters marching around the school all day carrying a baby's coffin with a black doll inside. They don't show the white teachers who either left the school or refused to teach her except for Mrs. Henry who taught her alone for a whole year. They don't show the destruction of Ruby's family's lives and livelihoods. 

The picture doesn't show the new white parents who chose the school for their children under protest the following day and days; the communities of blacks and whites who supported Ruby's family. This narrative is inspiring. And tragic, and informative. And unnecessary. As is every act of activism for racial justice. As is every anti-racist attitude and choice. The good in these histories is far outweighed by the bad. And you don't have to go as far as New Orleans in 1960. In 2022 Britain got our first black Chancellor of the Exchequer. Barely a fortnight later the Mirror tried to pass off a picture of Mr. Bernard Mensah, President of International for Bank of America as him. There's a whole host of racial injustice that precedes and accompanies state sponsored lynching.

Dr. King was wrong. Not wrong to dream, not wrong to march, not wrong to act. But wrong to believe in the inevitability of justice. Racial harmony is no more inevetable than the artificial genocidal construction of race that was created to support the ambitions of slave traders and colonialists was necessary. The combined evil that asserted itself to ideologically underpin the enslavement of Africans and colonialism withstood Scotland's enlightenment, the French revolution, and plenty of other philosophical renaissances. I am thankful for the work of the scholars and activists I have mentioned and so many others. But it will be for nothing if people refuse to be activated, if they remain inert and maintain 'objectivity'. Accepting our history should not have to be a revolutionary act. Unfortunately, there will have to be more revolutions, more pioneers, more firsts. There shouldn't have to be. At the same time that we applaud Scotland's impressive effort in the abolition of the trade of Africans as slaves we have to reckon with its place in that legacy with courage and humility. To quote Dr. Hannah-Jones "If we are truly a great nation, the truth cannot destroy us".

[tattypotamus]

Depravity of Indifference

Racism is not a case of white vs black. Seeing it as such guarantees it’s perpetuity. Racism is an offence against nature. 

The charge of Third Degree Murder requires proof that Chauvin committed a felony and, in so doing, was indifferent to the foreseeable risk of death of George Floyd. If I was his attorney I would have told him to plead guilty to that in the hope of some leniency at sentencing. The evidence, short of some bizarre left of field accident damns the officer completely & I am pretty sure it is conclusive against his co-accused who stood by throughout.

There is a different theory in which Chauvin heard him say “I can’t breathe”and should have known from that that death was imminent unless he got off his neck. As a police officer trained in the use of restraint it can hardly be doubted that he knew what he was doing and the outcome. And therefore that he intended that outcome unless he can argue some compelling reason why he was forced to stay kneeling with his hands in his pockets on a handcuffed man who may or may not have committed a non-violent offence. This is how 2nd Degree murder will play out. I don’t really want to hear it. George Zimmerman escaped a conviction for murdering Trayvon Martin by arguing some outrageous compulsion. The officers who lynched Rodney King escaped justice too. Jean Charles De Menezes killers were released from incredible culpable incompetence. It is possible that the officers in the Floyd case are being overcharged in order to extract a plea to a lower charge. I take a little comfort in the hefty bail demanded. If that tactic doesn’t work, the prosecutors will find themselves the targets of rage. 

Tragic that this sits in parallel with the debate it has ignited, mostly online. Question: Is Racism simply an attitude of indifference to endemic structural disadvantage for blacks (on every metric, worldwide, poorer opportunities and poorer outcomes) or does it require specific knowledge, specific intent to do harm, malice and an evil mind? Do we put racism into degrees, for arguments sake, or construct intersectional models to classify and identify and differentiate. 

What made Chauvin, or any officer for that matter culpable is that they sit in a role in which indifference is in itself unlawful. They have to care. They have to serve, they have to protect. The same goes for doctors, teachers, lawyers, judges. Elected politicians. We sign up for it. This isn’t really about that. This is about every person looking at the news, social media, their friends, their family.

One arm says that anyone in a position of privilege should be aware of it and act in an anti-racist manner consistent with it. It is controversial, when so many ‘white’ people are also systematically and institutionally disenfranchised. Another arm says you gain understanding through shared circumstances. A wonder therefore that so much hatred of blacks is found amongst the poorest whites in America and elsewhere. This is about identity and some very extreme circumstances that are evidently not shared. Institutional racism has pervaded the life of every black person. I don’t know any that are not aware of it.

And all of society too. No-one is enriched by the multiple disadvantages faced by blacks. Sure, the odd person gets the promotion on a wink and a nudge but that is not a benefit to any society. The dishonesty of racism cannot ever deliver a net positive, even to white supremacists, who, if they succeeded in their goal, would be left faced with their own telling oxymoron. Racism is not a case of white vs black. Seeing it as such guarantees it’s perpetuity. Racism is an offence against nature. It has been constructed, weaponised and fostered for the sake of maintaining power and wealth. It is as big a problem as climate change and requires the same solution. Everybody must know about it. Education needs to shift from systematically ignoring or hiding it in history to actively teaching it. And politicians must be held to account when they do not deliver against it. If you consider how we now treat leaders who are indifferent to the state of the planet, you may understand what I expect. 

In our homes, work places and social spaces there should be enlightened and informed conversation. Not a debate about whether racism is wrong but rather what it is and how events and contexts are affecting people. I see numerous memes quoting Dr. King condemning silence as complicity and just as many insisting that the movement and it’s artefacts are reserved exclusively for ‘black people’. One cannot demand that people speak up and then prescribe exactly what, when, how and where they should say it. If anyone of any ethnicity wishes to support, engage and enable the end of racism let them speak in their own voice.                                                                                       

What of me then? I cannot say nothing when the voice of my brothers’ blood cries out to me from the ground. That George Floyd is twinned in death with Eric Garner multiplies the tragedy. That there have been so many before and in-between makes me despair.  Breonna Taylor brings to life the worst of nightmares. Those who die without justice do not rest in peace. Memorial day in the USA, when George was murdered coincided with Africa Day. I cannot divorce the endless cortege from the centuries old pillaging and looting of the  Motherland. From Amadou Diallo to Tamir Rice to Breonna Taylor the trail of bodies continues relentlessly. I live in Glasgow, a city built through slavery with some of the worst poverty in Europe. In a nation of warrior poets, some of whose sons & daughters worked people to death in Jamaica & founded the KKK in the American south. Where Sheku Bayoh died inexplicably at the hands of the police. Britain, the country of empire, executing my ancestors, Boer concentration camps, xenophobic Brexit (Don’t tell me racism is simple). We visit my brother, my sister, my niece in Maryland. I fear for them. I have friends across the states snd across the world of all complexions. I will answer to my children if I do nothing. 

What of you? I don’t care much for hashtags. Do what you would do if it was your children’s lives at stake. When you vote, vote against the person who called immigrants swarms. When it is a privacy law, ask your MP if and how this affects anyone disproportionately. Ask them why families are not guaranteed legal aid for inquests. Ask them how Jerk Chicken can be the favourite dish in the Commons while the government of the day deports British Jamaicans to certain death, Don’t buy from racists including the Daily Mail. Don’t allow your government to create a hostile environment or deliver a racist message on vans without real consequence. Don’t let this issue become suffocated by other current issues. Tell them that you expect better from Police Officers and that the law should reflect that. Demand real accountability. Demand it. Demand real participation. And when they fail you like they have failed black people, demand it again as if your lives depended upon it. Ours do.

[tattypotamus]

View From The Roof

Michael came by yesterday to plaster the hole in the ceiling. Definitely got the leak now, a week of heavy rain and no ingress. I didn’t recognise him when I pulled up as he has dyed his hair purple. Not a gentle, subtle rinse, more a plumage. He mixed his plaster in a bucket on the pavement.

“So what do you think is going to happen tomorrow?”

My confused face

“You think she’ll get her deal?”

“You know, I have no clue. They, her whole group, is so bizarre that I don’t know how they have survived this long”.

I hadn’t guessed that Michael could have voted Leave. I didn’t see how anyone I knew and liked could. I haven’t asked anyone how they voted, it’s usually apparent. I was surprised.

We chatted for about 15 minutes. I was on the clock, otherwise I would have stayed longer. Michael was angry at the EU for using Ireland as a bargaining chip. He said they showed no respect to the holistic of the country. I countered that Britain had done the same. We got through a few bits.

“I voted leave because I was tired of them not listening to us”.

I pointed out that previous Ministers had pinned every misfortune befalling this country in the EU, which wasn’t true. I agreed though that they didn’t respond to Cameron that well.

“Cameron was weak though, everyone from Thatcher onwards has had a chance to get the EU to listen. It’s not their fault if our ministers haven’t sorted things out”.

I felt for Michael (not because he is a man who regularly gets on a roof in a Glasgow winter) More than I have for the Leave voters at all. He had a point, and he had a right to be heeded. His side won. To date, no one knows what they won because they were never told what the prize was. They weren’t promised anything, to be fair. But they then got landed with a PM with a twisted extreme version of Leave, despite having campaigned, advocated and voted for remain. Head of a divided, splintering party that she thought she could maintain. Incredibly weak to begin with but no weaker than when she lost the general election she called specifically on the issue of Brexit. Admittedly she got a huge number of public votes, but she lost her democratic mandate. That is a matter of fact.

She should have quit. Right then. But she didn’t and she didn’t change her tack, perhaps thinking that because she had the public backing her, the party would fall in line. Also, rightfully thinking that no-one else was popular enough to challenge. The opposition shot warning shots and little else. They tried to dominate the domestic agenda, much neglected in terms of column inches. Their infighting quietened down but there was no grand endorsement of Corbyn by the PLP.

Michael deserves better, we all do. We deserve a prime minister with credibility, political strength and integrity. The government has completely ignored the findings of fraud against Vote Leave. Not allegations. Findings by the specifically designated body for that matter. No time has been wasted scrutinising the evidence, determining who in the Cabinet and the Party was at the Campaign table when money was discussed and whether they should be in the dock. The police avoided investigating until the whiff of corruption became a bottled scent. There should have been sharks in the water. There were none. It would have given the PM every excuse to halt proceedings and consider the 2nd referendum proposition properly. There is the small matter of a hermetically sealed room full of government reports confirming our doom regardless of which invisible Brexit option we pursue. Ignored again on the pretext that they get in the way of the will of the people.

Instead she has argued that a 2nd referendum would cheat the leavers of 2016 of their rightful choice. As if the result were a foregone conclusion. More likely, she is motivated by a lack of confidence in her ability to perform the quadruple axel of reasoning required to work out what her position would be in the next referendum. Her party would be so contorted that she would not be able to plot her career course within it.

I agree that it would be wrong to run the same referendum again. We need a different referendum now that we know what the prize is and isn’t. We also need a PM who can offer us a useful alternative to leave or remain. We don’t have one. We don’t have any politician strong or stable enough to carry a convincing majority for any interpretation of leaving the EU. Both leaders of the main parties are deadlocked. They have the support of the public but not their parliamentary parties. This stops May from getting her vision through parliament and Corbyn from having the courage to force a no confidence vote. This should be a lesson to all those who said that the EU was an amorphous bunch of bureaucrats who could get nothing done. It isn’t the EU democracy that is flawed it’s ours. The British political union is lopsided, opaque and burdened by obscure tradition and convention. It’s no wonder that constitutional democracy looks so foreign to us; we prefer bonus lordships and maces to clear transparent rules. My point is that it is dysfunctional. A political system that allows, tolerates and empowers this level of chaos is not ’the best in the world’ or even ’the best we have got’. In court the head of the government lost the argument that the supreme legislature of the country should be able to determine if Brexit went ahead; she fought and lost to prevent it being made clear to MP’s that it was possible to revoke Article 50. She fought to keep legal advice secret from parliament, that parliament had decided they were entitled to see, and lost again. And fought to keep the truth about brexit and immigration secret, despite this being information that should have always been in the public domain. Yes, she lost. The majority of parliament is against Brexit yet they are being ordered to commit legislative suicide, against the interests of the country on the basis of an advisory referendum conceived through fraud. A government with no mandate delivering no manifesto except the one they were specifically voted down on. Oh, and on the subject off non-democratic institutions, how about that bit where May lost a vote in the lords and then plotted to stack it with Tory Peers to shove her legislation through?

May has shown no leadership. On Brexit or on anything else. Nor has Jeremy Corbyn for that matter or anyone in frontline politics. The cowardice of postponing the debate around the whole deal going would have gotten any leader ousted in the past. The hypocrisy of criticising the Speaker for allowing parliament to get the schedule back on track is limp and pathetic and makes a mockery of parliament. If one were to look at the record of the Tory government since 2015, they would be appalled. May’s mistake of hanging on long enough to see her own home office policies fail sits below the lid of brexit, as do the numerous embarrassments of her various cabinets. May’s report card only shows an A for Attendance. Otherwise it’s F’s all over. May had no business interpreting brexit, she campaigned against it. It cannot be hers.

Corbyn is like a man too obsessed with small ideas to even consider the big one. His sought after general election will be an embarrassment for him as he realises that Labour MP’s are desperate not to campaign on brexit, or for him, or with him. In fact they would rather be Tories now, at least they know exactly who hates them. It is not the Labour position that is problematic. An EEA style arrangement is almost exactly what everyone had in mind and could probably have been signed off on within 6 months of the referendum. It is the failure to be honest. That even that style deal

It seems that our hope rests on the Dominic Grieves, Gina Millers and David Lammys. The backbench heroes of today may end up with their heads on a platter tomorrow for daring to speak out. I like to think they will be immortalised in parades and not have their comments scrubbed from history in Brexit Britain.

Leavers and Remainers alike should recognise the EU for what it is. A protective cartel; a gang with older established members & eager young new entrants; a method of keeping countries interests so interlinked that war is just too awkward to consider as a method of solving problems; a logical response to the eastern and western superpowers (USA & China to be specific)... and so on. It is all of these things and none depending on your perspective. Does it work? Well, yes, obviously, it’s only need is to exist, which it does. In that sense it takes on the nature of a state. Any other complaints can usually be placed right back with the member states and their politicians.

Michael was upset at how the EU had dealt with Northern Ireland. He thought it failed to appreciate our history. I ploughed in about how our politicians had toyed with Ireland for generations and used it as a bargaining chip without putting it front & center of whatever deal was to emerge. And then I pointed out that Ireland was part of the EU and if anyone appreciated the importance of the British border in Ireland it was the people who lived next to it. Maybe our politicians should have listened to them too. I was trying to persuade him, and I doubt I did. But he did admit that I had a few points. As I did to him.

The worst part of any brexit is that we would be driven closer to the USA. We pull be crushed by it’s gravity and cowered by it’s size and influence. When all of eager trading partners have had their chunk of flesh, Britain will be the worse for wear. We will surrender our world power status and resign ourselves to being a vassal for hire. The rich will transfer their wealth as ever they did and our welfare state will wither. We will be a state in decline as our strategic relationships tip against us. So when Lammy talks about the neo-liberal asset stripping continuing, I take him as just saying that the men and women of brexit are the same ones who's callous disregard for society means they will lie in whatever way they can to get away with it. It will be a lot of sad days of realisation that we no longer have the power to change our own fate.

I don’t know what the economic consequences of Brexit but I believe the numerous experts in chorus that it will be disastrous for Britain. I don’t think we have anything to gain by abandoning the legal framework that regulates trade between 28 countries. Our borders are far safer within the EU than without and there is scope for even more restrictions to placate the xenophobes crying out about imaginary consequences to the NHS & wages. There is no control to be taken back in the modern world; only exchanged for value. If there was ever a case for presidential power it would be this- to take decision-making responsibility from anyone who would commit such an act of political self-harm until they can show a decent level of insight into their consequences.

Let’s remind ourselves that the cabinet member responsible for Britain’s response to the greatest crisis facing this country (climate change, not brexit) has had enough of experts. Let’s remember the 350 million on the bus; The poster of hordes and the pound in free fall; the hostile environment and the NHS staff shortages; 30 cabinet resignations in 18 months of which 11 do not relate to Brexit at all (it took Blair more than 10 years to amass the same non-brexit body count); the murder of a member of parliament in the name of ‘Britain first’; destitution doubling over 5 years; doctors on strike and the worst NHS winter crisis ever. Let’s remind ourselves that ‘Taking back Control’ has found this government the first ever to be in contempt of parliament and on the losing side of every brexit challenge in the highest courts at the taxpayers expense. If you want brexit badly enough to let this all pass, you deserve it. But if you actually want to examine and remedy the problems that brought you to the ballot box, let’s talk.

[tattypotamus]

a long, long while from May to December

[tattypotamus]

[tattypotamus]

#Londonhasspoken

Most of the News coverage that I have seen about the London Mayoral Election has focussed on the fact that the new Mayor is a Muslim. Distracted as I have been by the Scottish elections, I haven’t followed the coverage as I would have done if I still lived in London. But I would say from my 13 years in the city that they have somewhat missed the point. London has, for decades been a truly multi-ethnic, multi-religious city. As the rolling suburbs and ghettoes sprawl beyond the M25, what becomes more homogenous is London cultural Matrix. And unfortunately this is not necessarily a positive thing. Across the age groups, ethnicities, genders and sexes what Londoners experience in common are increasing levels of inequality. Jobs are still scarce with those entering or returning to the workforce being expected to unquestioningly work for free for the sake of ‘experience’ or ‘exposure’. Housing provision is consistently more and more frustrating and in the realm of the unrealistic. Transport is so expensive and insufficient that London teeters daily on the brink of gridlock. Health and schools, for those that need them are a ruthless public lottery, mores than the rest of the country because of London’s population size. When you look at these things together you will find that most eligible voters in London will be afflicted by some of these factors. The real survival level creeps ever higher and now submerges in most lawyers, teachers, nurses and doctors. London is a stressful city to live in. Holidays are not a luxury, but a necessity, and when it can cost more to get across the city to an airport than for the flights to Morocco, even the most staunch londoner must hearken. So when asked to elect a son of privilege from the most privileged part of the city who looks and sounds like a relative of last privileged buffoon that ran the city, it’s no surprise that most of those voters asked for a better option. And a better option is someone who looks like someone that they have met before, sounds like someone they speak to regularly and could have experienced some of the same challenges that they have just surviving life in the city. While Mr. Goldsmith would have had to distance himself from the assumptions of wealth and fortune that are his baggage (Did he even try), Mr. Khan benefitted from the opposite. That the former and his allies savaged the latter with poorly judged accusations of the worst sort, only served to convince people that this was what they experienced on a daily basis. This was the rich ganging up on the not rich. Speaking from experience, a Human Rights Lawyer does not wake up or go to bed to wealth. No trust funds are left by their bus driver fathers, and they are more likely to have spent more than an hour with a homeless family; a man who has not showered in a week; a frustrated social worker at the end of her tether trying to get an asylum-seeking child a care needs assessment. The refrain of London politics under the last mayor has been that the City must be protected at all costs. The outgoing mayor has soured relations with other English cities, our European partners and not least of all, Londoners themselves, all for the sake of the financial institutions at home in the glass towers that tower over the city. It can be no surprise that Londoners resent the foreign wealth that the mayor so enthusiastically invites when it leads to housing prices climbing out of reach and no direct benefit. It is not a month since a massive data leak revealed how little of this incredible wealth is taxed effectively. Philip Green’s shenanigans that seemingly bankrupted BHS show that you don’t even have to go beyond Croydon to find the super-rich. Unfortunately you have to go to Monaco to get the tax they should have paid. The election was a statement about religion inasmuch as it shows how religion will not trump the politics of class and wealth in London. Mr. Goldsmith has been rightfully castigated for his dirty politic, but even if he had fought clean he probably would have lost. London, as a capital is becoming increasingly hostile. It is a city that is failing to sustain it’s inhabitants as it competes with other capitals for the favour of the super-rich without a plan as to how it will attract and retain their wealth. The mix of religions in London has rarely been a significant issue as most people there live in the noise, smells and sights that they do not and cannot choose and they do their best to appreciate it. That Sadiq Khan is a Muslim sets London apart from many other European capitals, to it’s credit, but the issue of wealth has far more in common with the aspirations of voters worldwide. It’s the inequality. And it’s not stupid.

[tattypotamus]

Know truth

Life-Size Portraits of Wildlife Installed in the Destructed African Lands They Once Inhabited

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Fair Trade

I don’t know exactly when it was that the term ‘Third World’ was replaced by ‘the developing world’. Possibly around the time when WTO trade talks collapsed for the first time. Maybe when some figures came out showing growing inequality between countries of the world and a new initiative was needed to address this on a ‘global’ level. Suffice it to say, neither label is more meaningful except as comparison to other countries being First or Developed. Special mention is made of BRICS which exist in some limbo between. The traffic between the top and the bottom sends aid  and charity down and immigrants, up. This is the era when aid is big business and is needed by governments for GDP. We have become very good, in Western society at setting up facilities for those in need. We have food banks for those reduced to food and fuel poverty by the fall in living standards. The Red Cross and DEC are well-funded and staffed. A thriving third sector is a key indicator of a healthy economy.

Charities do not generate wealth, they survive by the generosity of others who presumably generate it through plying their trade. Now onto the bizarre. look across Africa whether East, West, North or South and see the wealth of natural resources there are, raw materials for everything that the planet consumes. Not everything, obviously but it is the most appropriate example. Look then at the GDP of the countries where these resources are found and be awed. Contrast that with the developed countries where Service increasingly dominates the economies. The citizens earn higher wages/salaries, enjoy more political/financial/ social stability and, on the whole have better standards of living. They work, play and give to charity. Organisations such as the Red Cross, MSF and Oxfam are part of the development community deploying these outpourings in some of the worst suffering regions of the world. Their governments give a percentage of the national wealth in the form of Aid (the UK government is currently fighting to fix this in legislation at 0.7% of GDP) which they use to promote their agendas overseas, sometimes quite altruistically, sometimes to rebuild the countries they have recently or historically bombed the life out of. This aid sometimes has great results and sometimes crippling terms are tied to it. Sometimes it seems to evaporate without a trace.    

There is an obvious anachronism here. The countries that own resources are the poorest and least developed. they haemorrhage their natural wealth and are efficiently bled dry of it at the same time. It is remarkable how this has been accepted by most of the planet, with little probing question. In the post GFC world there are more questions about the nature of wealth and political power. The grand injustice inflicted upon the Western countries by their financial institutions and the perceived complicity of their politicians, has ushered in an era of great cynicism interspersed with protests such as the Occupy movement, the 99 Percent, and, dare I say it, UKIP and the Scottish Referendum. This is protest in the sense of large movements motivated against the perceived glacial flow of politics and business as usual. Hell, the resignation of a pope in favour of what is seen as a revolutionary pope may be part of the change. There is greater awareness and willingness among some to question the way things have been. Unfortunately there is also in some quarters a fatalism and determination to return to what existed before.

What we had was a system of awfully unfair trade. The primary extractors and producers were at the bottom of the economic ladder, while those that speculated on the value of commodities were at the top and they ultimately set the price for their benefit. When you extract 4 times the value of goods through derivative trading, the originator ends up wondering why he bothered at all. Capitalism does not favour the producers of Raw materials unless they are rare and special. The experienced capitalists in developed countries have co-opted the rest of the world into a system that they have mastered. The trade rules are skewed against the producers resulting in them hardly ever profiting from their labours despite taking all of the risks against drought, disease and politics. Better people than me have researched the figures substantiating this but I’d wager that the figure of $1 in aid going against $2 in lost trade still holds truth. Subsidies, quota’s, tariffs and waste are all implicated in the systematic restrictions on development of the developing world by trade.

Without a doubt the largest controllable factor that divides states in the global environment is international trade. This determines the ability of people to harness the resources they own and trade them fairly for what they need. I cannot conceive of any other way in which the imbalance can be addressed and the extreme poverty and needless suffering can be alleviated. My critics will suggest that a reduction in corruption would be a start. I would not argue with this. If the recent Ebola outbreak has taught us anything it is that building efficient and operational health-care systems is essential to prevent any such outbreak running rampant in the way in which it did. It was raised with the Liberian Health Minister that $60 million had been given to that government precisely for the purpose of improving it’s healthcare system. Of that amount $3.9 million can be traced within the system. Tales abound of Mobutu Sese Seko’s Swiss Bank accounts, Isabel Dos Santos’ substantial wealth, Jacob Zuma’s mansion, this is no new news. Aid that flows straight from the helpers to swiss bank accounts is counter-productive. A lot can be accomplished with $2 million dollars but it was nowhere near enough to fix the problems in Liberia. Fair trade shoots ahead because it empowers citizens to help themselves rather than governments or individuals to help citizens. A country where the citizens own their economy is far more likely to have the will and the means to hold their government to account.

[tattypotamus]

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[tattypotamus]

Fresh Dressing

There are only two Christmas songs that I will sing along to when they come on the radio. The Pogues paint a picture of a Xmas I can, thankfully, not recognise, but is fun, hilarious and just a little wretched. The other one involves all of the familiar sounds of all the eighties stars calling us to arms to defeat world hunger at Xmas time. Only the Irish have had a more infamous famine than the Ethiopians endured in the eighties. I’m starting to see a pattern emerging involving great Christmas songs and famine…  

Looking at the television adverts between the seasonal specials, you would be forgiven for thinking that the same regions are vying for prime position in the sympathies of the more affluent inhabitants of the planet, year on year. It must be said that the response to the appeals has been truly amazing. Given the atmosphere in the west, which is bombarded with tales of their own economic tragedy, ordinary people have repeatedly opened their hands in generosity despite all of the swingeing cuts, austerity, food banks, housing shortages and youth unemployment. Sometimes you just have to be thankful that some people can be so good to their fellow men and women. 

The impressive results of every appeal fills the donors rightfully with hope & expectation that they have solved a problem. This is not only the case with crisis appeals but also sponsorship programmes, direct appeals (new roof for the church to new borehole for a village). And why should it not be the case when most appeals ask for specific sums or quantify the aid required as specifically as a dollar figure?

Given that African lives are advertised as much cheaper to support, you could legitimately expect that the money given would solve the problems that it targets. Yet year on year desperate pleas for relief prompt one to wonder where the money went. Oxfam's maxim of the practical benefits of training fishermen over donating fish makes bankable wisdom. How then, is it that the same regions of the third world seem to be endlessly afflicted by the same crises almost in rotation?

Band Aid 30, as the most recent line-up is called is aimed at alleviating the effects of Ebola in West Africa. the announcement of the project generated a storm of publicity both positive and negative. Accusations of vanity, corruption, selfish career-driven motivation and colonial patronisation. The original Band-aid single raised more than $24 million in 1984 to relieve famine in Ethiopia. The combination of Band Aid and Live Aid combined raised about $150 million for the Ethiopia famine relief; more money than all previous celebrity charity combined. $150 million is a large amount of money. It was far more in 1984 when Ethiopia needed it and western governments were not giving it. I doubt that anyone starving or watching their children starving was at all concerned for the careers of the Pop-stars involved when they accepted food that was given to them. From the people that I have spoken to  who are old enough to remember the event and the release of the single there was a sense of people's ability to change things on their own. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher was planting her feet firmly in the ground, resisting sanctions against South Africa’s Apartheid regime having just conceded independence to Zimbabwe. American stars were about to sing 'We are the World’ in the same vein as ‘Feed the World' and a few years after that, Springsteen, Tracy Chapman and others would perform at a human rights concert in Harare in 1988. This was people power at the end of the cold war when capitalism was riding high and triumphant. Live Aid raised and delivered in a powerful way.

Few people know about the next version of the song rendered by Cliff Richard and friends a couple of years later. Most people know about the 2008 version featuring a mostly new line-up. The most recent incarnation has an even newer line-up. The cause is now Ebola, so the lyrics have been changed slightly to reflect this. In particular they mention West Africa where the Ebola outbreak is centred. Most of the outrage that I have seen and read about comes about because of a sense that Africa is victimised by bad publicity and over-generalisation. Africans I know want the continent to be portrayed in a positive light with attention paid to it’s bountiful gifts, natural beauty and growth potential. The attitude, it is said is typical of an outdated western colonial mentality that patronises Africans and minimises their own efforts.

Ebola is by no means Africa’s biggest scourge. Unfair trade is (more on that to follow). Other troubles include hunger (100,000 dead in ), Aids (1.1 Million in 2012) Lower Respiratory tract Infections (1 Million + dead), Diarrhoeal disease(644,000 in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2012) and hunger is responsible for a third of child deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lists of horrible statistics are endless. Most of these encompass Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa. True, this does not provide an accurate figure for any single country in Africa. and different African countries have different problems. Rwanda, and neighbouring DRC  have the fallout from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 as well as the civil war in the DRC that has embroiled other African countries for decades. Zimbabwe is involved in this war, narrowly escaped complete economic collapse 4 years ago and has a most serious deficit of democracy. South Africa’s legacy of Apartheid has not been over-turned with the overwhelming majority of blacks still living in poor conditions and social mobility stalling. Ethiopia and Eritrea are in a territorial stalemate that has lasted a generation. Somalia is still regarded as ungovernable, while it’s ills spill over to Kenya and the High Seas. South Sudan, the world’s youngest country teeters on the edge of civil war having escaped the genocidal efforts of the Janjaweed. Even Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy suffers from internal terrorism, huge inequality and is awfully infamous for corruption.

Botswana does alright.

Africa is an enormous continent. Populous and diverse, it is marred and scarred by the history of centuries of colonialism and slavery. Pan-Africanism , a movement that gained momentum in the middle of the last century led more and more Africans to identify with each other because of common histories, common circumstances, a desire to erase artificial boundaries and a certain ideal that Africa would have to pull together to recover from the ravaging, raping and pillaging it had endured and still endured for some decades after. This identification did not preclude African countries from identifying with their colonisers. Some leaders used these opportunities to forge trade links, enhance co-operation and heal rifts. others used these links to buy weapons to crush internal rebellion, amass great wealth, improve their power and status. Others made new friends along ideological cold war lines permitting themselves to be pawns in the East-West Chess game. It is hard to say with certain figures but most of the countries lost something in the bargain, some more than others. As a result, not much has changed. Africa is still beautiful and resourceful with a terrible legacy.

Being part of the global community through telecommunications means we are more aware than ever of our image to the outside world. We can momentarily turn away from this harsh reality that Africa is a continent that is still massively under-developed. Most of it’s potential is presently being plundered by foreign companies and it’s smartest, most capable people have fled for an opportunity to make good their own chances. When we do so, we can be outraged that Africa is portrayed as a continent that cannot help itself. This represents a failing in the philosophy we were brought up on and it suggests wasted effort on the parts of all the people who have tried to change Africa’s way and failed. It contrasts African countries with the BRICS who are experiencing growth in their economies and a rise in the living standards of their citizens. It makes it far more difficult to confidently represent Africa in a positive light. Nobody wants to be a charity case.

Yes, there is growth in some parts of Africa. There are small businesses thriving in cities and towns. There are tarred roads, electricity and broadband. All of this is true, but to ignore all of the negatives that make many parts of Africa stand out in the world is simple ignorance. The other ignorance is to pretend that Africans are fixing African problems. They lack the means and, in many cases the political will to do so. The few leaders that put their heads above the parapet to criticise their counterparts suffer ostracism and ridicule, and they only dare to do so from a position of relative economic strength. Many of the leaders lack legitimacy, democratic or otherwise, yet they are firmly entrenched. There is a lack of credibility amongst the state institutions that would create stability by holding both the executive and the legislature to account. These are the bare bones of functional civil society. One does not have to clone a western government to get the blueprint for an African one, but to continue without essentials aimed at democracy, accountability and justice is folly.

I doubt that Adele had the same reasons for turning down the invitation to participate in the new Band Aid, given that her version of social justice entails not paying tax on her fortune because she hasn’t ridden a bus in so long. To the others who turned down the invitation, you should do so with reference to all that both the singers intend and the recipients would gain. Sure, a donation of money is plenty meaningful to help but why begrudge anyone the chance to help any other way? Being so persistent about portraying Africa as a wonderful place is as daft as portraying it as a constant circle of hell. If people who are put off going on a safari holiday in Hwange or Chobe because of Ebola in West Africa, they should have their passports revoked as they are not intelligent enough to be allowed to travel anyway. They certainly wouldn’t survive transit at Johannesburg Airport. Hedge and Pension Fund managers do not rely on the pop charts for their due diligence so the myth of millions of pounds of investment being lost because of bad PR is a fallacy. The Ebola victims who would benefit from the proceeds of the sale of this single are probably not as concerned with their image as the buyers of the single are. And they don’t lose their dignity simply because they need help, any more than the person who buys the charity single. I do not like the new Band Aid song, but I liked the original. I like it more now that I know it’s context and how much of a difference it made.

In times of such crisis, there is no room for arguments about the patronisation of the developing world by the developed. Responding generously to the plea is, and has been, the human & natural course of action when faced with disaster. I saw footage a few weeks ago of a woman writhing on the ground outside a clinic in Sierra Leone, while her internal organs dissolved. Her paroxysms ended the following day when she died. She had two children who were both alive at the time but no-one at the time had anywhere for them to go as the rest of their family had already died. Whether they know it’s Christmas time or not hardly seems to matter. It matters though, that we care.

As I write this in a Cafe in Glasgow, a choir of school children are singing the new band-aid single. Their red school jumpers make them part of the decoration and part of the spirit of this year’s festive season. I hope that in years to come they will feel a familiar shiver when they hear this song and they will be inspired to take their goodwill to where it is needed most.

[tattypotamus]